Media Matters, a left-leaning media watchdog organization, has raised a perfectly valid and intriguing question.
How can a major news organization cover the president of the United States when the president has a “fiduciary” connection to the network?
Media Matters is referring to Donald J. Trump’s continued association with an NBC-TV show, “The Apprentice,” where he will remain as an executive producer.
http://action.mediamatters.org/nbc_celebrity_apprentice_dump_trump
NBC — and its affiliate networks, MNSBNC and CNBC — cannot possibly cover Trump with any degree of impartiality if Trump is getting paid by NBC for his relationship with “The Apprentice,” according to Media Matters. What if the network felt compelled to cover the president aggressively? How does that square with the possibility that negative news coverage would harm the president’s public standing and, by association, harm the TV show he serves as an executive producer.
As Media Matters declared: “There is simply no way that citizens can trust the reporting of NBC News, CNBC, and MSNBC. Executives have put hard working reporters at these outlets in a completely untenable spot: No amount of disclosure is sufficient when the network is financially invested in the president.”
Well … ? How about it, NBC?
